


Still und Geborgen, Frei ohne Sorgen

by WildandWhirling



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: AKA 'The one time in Fritz' life when he cared about the tempo', Abuse of a flute, An attempt was made at historical accuracy, Katte's questionable theology, M/M, Missing Scene, Ominous Foreshadowing is Ominous, References to Frederick William's A+ parenting skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 08:58:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17680400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildandWhirling/pseuds/WildandWhirling
Summary: A romantic fantasy, like a castle on a cloud, but his all the same.It's 1730, Frederick William is on the warpath, Fritz is trying to practice his music, and Katte is trying to protect Fritz.





	Still und Geborgen, Frei ohne Sorgen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bacchantetriste](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacchantetriste/gifts).



> So, I decided to get out of my usual habit of writing about nothing except for gays in 18th century France by taking part in a fic exchange...and then was promptly assigned to write about gays in 18th century Prussia.
> 
> In all seriousness, this love story has broken my heart for a long time, all the hope and the possibilities for what might have been, and so it was great to be able to work with something outside of my usual range, even if there's an added bit of terror when you're working with real people. 
> 
> Thank you to Moorehawke for your suggestions and advice, and an additional thanks to everyone in the Frederick the Great and Katte tags on Tumblr for creating such fantastic content to help me work my way through this one. 
> 
> With apologies to Bach's Partita in A Minor.

 

It had been harder to slip away since the trip to Augustus the Strong. Frederick William seemed even more grasping, more controlling, and the offer of 100 ducats to whoever was willing to play traitor hung in the air like an executioner’s sword.

 

The stifling army shroud that his father forced him to wear had been flung off, discarded on a chair where it could rot as it deserved to, sweat and dirt from the training ground clinging onto his skin and his undershirt, hair loosed from the strict pigtail of an army officer. In another time, he might have put on his favorite dressing robe, rich and red, the silk cool against overheated skin, the gold brocade shimmering in the candlelight, and talked like a human being (not the boar’s grunting that his father did at Wusterhausen with his lackeys and buffoons, though Fritz could never tell which was which when he was there), forgotten about his father and his rules and regimens for an hour or so.

 

But it was a hot day, and Frederick William could discover them at any time. He’d almost discovered them before, the heavy boots against the stairs and Hans’ quick ears the only thing that had saved them then. His father had burned the red dressing robe then, the gold dancing in in the flames as it shimmered one last time, but he had not burned Fritz or Hans, and so they called it a victory.

 

Instead, Fritz raised his flute, Principessa, to his mouth, the silver catching the glow of the dim flame that burned in the fireplace. The measured sound of wind filling the narrow metal passage was accompanied only by the crackling of the flame. In lighter times, Wilhemina might have accompanied him, her own beloved lute, Principe, working with Principessa to create harmonies that intertwined and competed with each other in equal measure. Now, there was little conversation, and Principessa was nameless in the still room, their only company the shadows that danced along the wall to the tune set by the fire.

 

_G#, E, F, E_

 

The notes flowed freely in rapid succession, his fingers moving as if they were parts of a well-tuned automaton.

 

“The only princess who will ever capture my heart,” Fritz had said, once, holding the flute with pride as he sat in a brightly lit room with Wilhelmina, and they had laughed then. Now, as he was left with nothing but to pray that the Englishman, Hotham, could find it in his walnut-sized brain to get him married to his cousin, Emily, there was something grim about it.

 

Well, no one ever said that love and marriage were natural friends to one another.

 

As his parents often showed.

 

_A, E, F, E_

 

Easy enough, he was set in the pattern now, and it wasn’t much to change the opening note, just a single shift of the fingers, releasing the G, F, and E keys to create the difference in sound at the beginning. Even though the notes were going quickly, too quickly at times, he was making a decent pace.

 

From the doorway, Hans stood at attention, the fireplace casting his darker complexion in shades of orange and gold, and he could see a fond smile edging its way along his pox-pitted face at the sound of his music, which was enough to urge Fritz on. He wanted to _impress_ him, even if this was supposed to be an escape, he wanted Hans to praise him and notice how much he’d improved. There were few enough people he cared for in the world, it made the opinion of those he did care about all the more important.

 

_B, E, F, E_

 

He could feel the dangerous area approaching, the one that he continually failed no matter how hard he tried to steel himself for it. He’d struggled with this piece before, and each time, he found himself lost in the notes, one after another like a volley of bullets. Still, there was no great change, with the only difference being that this time he released his finger on the A key.

 

Not that he trusted self-seeking flatterers either, like the men who hounded his father. It was in the moderation of the thing, that was the key. And Hans was always honest, he knew. By God, he’d risked his life to be here. If he was after just a better position or a higher pay, he’d have turned him in to his father for the 100 ducats and been on his way.

 

_D, E, F, E_

 

His fingers betrayed him again, so accustomed to the rhythm of before and so lost and frantic in the pace that they repeated the earlier pattern. In his haste, he had seen only that the first note had changed and then filled in the rest, regardless of the direction, forcing the pattern through again, the single note too high and too shrill for itself.

 

Impressed be damned, he thought as he continued to force wind through the instrument, even though he knew that he’d lost the flow of the song. At this point, he would have settled for mild applause.

 

It grated on his ears, time after time again, taunting him. It was bad enough when someone else played badly, niggling and biting at him, so that he had the strong urge to lean behind them and tell them where they were wrong, or else rearrange their fingerings himself. But when it was him, it was insufferable.

 

Angrily, he tossed Principessa to the side (though not hard enough to leave a dent, the instrument worth more to him than its weight in gold). “ _Scheiße_ ! _Verdammte Scheiße!_ ”

 

He was hot and he was tired and nothing was _working_ and he was on the edge of his own sanity. This was supposed to be a time of _peace_ , damn it.  

 

From the doorway, he could see the smile on Hans’ face deepen, only pricking his irritation more.

 

He sat himself down in the chair, crossing his arms across his chest, the grimace that his father had regularly criticized him for (not that that was anything strange, especially these days) set firmly into his face, completely aware of how much like a child he looked and incapable of doing anything else. “Traitor!”

 

Hans strode over, all confidence, settling behind the velvet chair. “If I were a traitor,” he said, massaging Fritz’s shoulder blades on both sides with his thumbs as his dark eyes looked down at him, “We would both be at your father’s mercy. And regardless of the outcome, I would lose some very good company, that I happen to esteem very greatly.”

 

“And arrogant, too, scoundrel.” Fritz tried his hardest to keep the scowl on his face in light of Hans touching him in the way he always knew to touch him when he was in a mood and hadn’t yet ordered everyone out. “Shameless.”

 

“And you would not have me so near if I wasn’t.”

 

Fritz huffed. It was true. Keith was a loyal friend, devoted to a fault and far more pliant but he wouldn’t stand in the doorway to listen for his father’s marching boots, especially if it went against his own common sense as it did with Hans’. There was only one man he’d trust with that.

 

“And, anyway, where does most of our shame come if not from guilt over sin? And, if the Calvinist faith is correct and our fates are decided one way or another, then the amount we sin shouldn’t matter, and any sense of shame is a failed endeavour.”  


“Corrupting the Crown Prince? Careful, you might find yourself court martialed one day.” In truth, he’d had his doubts about religion for many years, and the more his father tried to saddle him with sermons and bowing and scraping on a stone floor, the more he couldn’t believe it. But, with Hans he could be open about these things, the things that he couldn’t tell Wilhelmina without getting pitying, heartbroken glances and entreaties, the things that she’d never stop blaming Hans for.

 

To her, he would only ever be his damnation, but to him, he was the closest he’d ever come to salvation, providing one of the few, few times in his life that he felt some lift in the unhappiness that settled across the strain of his lifetime like a thick mantle, though he doubted, to some extent, whether he could ever truly be capable of lasting happiness. The fickleness of human nature seemed designed to thwart him there.

 

“By?” Katte leaned closer, voice low near his ear, the warmth of his body enticingly close. And Fritz could smell the heavy powder he used in his hair.

 

He kept his composure. “My sister.”

 

Wilhelmina was his closest confidant and truest friend in the world, but there were some things that they simply could not reach an accord on, and the presence of Katte was one of them. She simply couldn’t let him be on his own when it came to his friendships, she always had to give him a thousand warnings about his station like a little mother, or else a nagging wife.

 

“I believe myself to be too well-loved by other members of the Royal Family to suffer a long persecution.” He leaned in closer, and his mouth, full and lush and perfect for kissing, was becoming much more tempting. If Fritz turned his head to the side and upwards, he’d have him.

 

“Hm?” Fritz said, tilting his head away, so that his mouth was just out of reach. He wasn’t going to make it _too_ easy for him, after all.

 

“Your mother thinks too much of me.”

 

“Only because I never stop talking about you, and it provides a reprieve from philosophy.” Before Hans could say anything more, Fritz turned and pulled him by the lapels, closing the distance between them and then all that mattered was Hans and his lips, too soft for one of his father’s soldiers, openly smiling against his mouth though Fritz couldn’t bring himself to mind, and Fritz’ hands clambering for whatever he could get ahold of, whatever could hold him _steady_ , and Hans’ warm mouth opening to his before they had to part. Then, it was just Hans and his dark eyes, looking at him affectionately, the flame casting hues of amber and gold on them and Hans’ hands cupping his face.

  
“My prince,” he said, and there was no strutting there, no arrogance. And then, as they both came back to themselves, “I have to return. We’re both dead men if His Majesty should walk in and find us like this.”

 

Fritz nodded, daring to imagine, just for his own amusement, not hoping, of what the future would look like when he was king, and there would be no need for this. When he could be free to live his life, not as a prisoner, but as a man, one with the power to live as he wished to.

 

As Katte moved to leave, he realized that he’d been sharp earlier, the kiss acting like a cold splash of water on his temper, reaching around to squeeze Hans’ hand. “Forgive me, my dearest Katte.”

  
Hans slowly returned it, his hand skimming along Fritz’s palm before squeezing back, the touch of bare skin against bare skin somehow more intimate than the kiss. “Of course. Anything for you, my beloved prince.”

 

“You would never leave me, would you, Hans?” He hated it, the desperation, the neediness, when he knew perfectly well that his father would tilt the board as he felt and scramble the pieces the second he saw Fritz was too happy. But, for a moment in time, he wanted to believe that he could be master of his own fate, if Hans-Hermann von Katte would only stay by his side, brave and loyal as always. A romantic fantasy, like a castle on a cloud, but _his_ all the same.

 

Katte’s lips brushed against the top of Fritz’s curls, cool and soothing. “I will always be here, Your Highness.”

 

And, for a moment of time, the Crown Prince knew peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Sources consulted (briefly, because I was in a bit of a panic) 
> 
> \- Wilhelmine's Memoirs  
> \- Frederick the Great, King of Prussia by Tim Blanning  
> \- Frederick the Great, the Magnificent Enigma by Robert Asprey  
> \- And Friedrich: Mythos und Tragödie. Not that I would EVER trust it with the history bit and it's not like this really shares a continuity with it, but because it makes very good music to cry to. And because Tobias Bieri's Fritz kept lingering in my mind while writing it anyway.


End file.
